Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Otter, the River

Sonnet to the River Otter

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West!

How many various-fated years have past,

What happy and what mournful hours, since last

I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,

Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest

Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes

I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,

Thy crossing-plank, thy marge with willows gray,

And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,

Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,

Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood’s cares, yet waking fondest sighs:

Ah! that once more I were a careless child!